Not sure if it is swim bladder..!

[malhilo]

1. Please explain the problems with your fish. When did you notice the problems and did anything unusual happen that you think started them?
I have a 270 Liter (liter no gallon) tank, with 6 juveniles and 3 3.5inch discus were in it, last week I got another 10 juveniles, I quarantined them for 3 days, when I saw that they are ok I moved them to the 270 liter tank along with the 9 other discus.
2 days later one of the new juveniles started acting like she is losing balance, suddenly head goes up and she starts floating up, hand tails moving very quickly and the color goes black, few seconds she is back normal, move and eat very normally; this used to happen very frequently (every few minutes), I thought it is swim bladder so I added sea salt.
2 days later she is almost normal, she is doing this very less, but I noticed that some other fish have hand fins started to shrink and have fin rot (not sure if it is rot but something wrong with the fins) one of them is an old juveniles but yet they are moving and eating like nothing is wrong, another new juvenile is doing same moves as the one with the swim bladder..
Today I noticed that one of the 3.5” discus is acting the same way, but do not think it is swim bladder because if she was doing the move and I came close to the tank she will balance her self and run quickly for me..and sometimes other fish come close to her and push her and she will wake up, it is like she is in a comma for few seconds..I did a WC today, added salt and fmc.

2. Symptoms headstanding , rotting or fungus.

3. What medications/ treatments have you already tried and what were the results. Include dosage and duration of treatment.
Salt and fmc, some fish got better but the disease is spreading



Tank/Water

4. Tank size and ages, numbers and sizes of fish.
270 liter.


5. Water change regime (What percentage and how often).
Daily WC, 10% first day, 20% second day, 30% 3rd day, then back to 10%.


6. How long has tank been running? Is it bare bottom? If you have substrate, what type and how deep is it?
More than 6 months, bare bottom.


7. Do you age your water? If you do for how long and what is the ph swing.
no


8. Parameters and water source;
Note: Water Parameters are important in diagnosing problems within a tank. If you don't own test kits for the following information, you can purchase them, test your parameters and post this info as soon as possible.


- temp 30C (86F)

- ph 7.6

- ammonia reading 0

- nitrite reading 0

- nitrate reading there is nitrate but very minimum reading..

What type of water or combinations of water sources do you use? If it is an RO/tap/well water mix, please list percentages in the mix.
100% tap water


9. Any new fish, plants or inverts added recently.
yes new fish

10. Please tell us what you feed your fish and how often. This can be critical information for solving the problem so be as specific as you can.
BH mix, Acti pellets, frozen bloodworm.


11. Include any pictures or videos you have which shows the symptoms. If you can't add them to this post, please provide a link to them.

[bluelagoon]

Hi,your WC's need to increase.After months of nearly no new water,I would think that your nitrates are threw the roof.Do some 75% WC's until the nitrates are below 10.The table salt might help with the fin rot but not much helpful for swim bladder disease which is caused by and/or high nitrates,gulping of air,air in their food(floating pellets/dried foods),worms or other parasites blocking ducts.Epsom salts tho sometimes help with these blockages.From where is the 100% tap water are you using coming from.

[bluelagoon]

I would get another nitrate kit.Your using BH with hardly any water changes.10% is not a WC,nor is 30% for discus.They will not grow.

[malhilo]

Thanks Bluelagoon..
Well, am sure it is not nitrate, i have 2 test kits and on both the reading is not more than 10..
For the wc, beside the regular daily wc, every 2 weeks I do around 75% wc, clean all filters, change media if needed..
I can tell that the issue is a somthing came with the new discus, I just need to know what is it and how to treat it..
The big one got worse today, she is floating all over the tank, only swim correctly when I get close to the tank as she wants to eat..or if another fish hit her..more over small fish are now attacking her..
I would appreciate any help..
Thanks

[bluelagoon]

A pic or a video would be even better.You daily water changes are about 7 gal.for a 71 gal tank.Your really should be changing more than a bucket and half of water daily or even 30% every 3 days is too little.And so is 75% every two weeks.That little bit of water will not make much of a difference;you're leaving 70-90% of the dirty water behind every time and even tho it's looks clean it is being saturated with DOC/TDS over time.Those small WC's would be a waste of time for "DISCUS"IMO.Will you get micro bubbles with large WC's?Where do you get your water(well,city)?I know it comes from a tap.What is it treated with?What is fmc?

[malhilo]

Dude..it is not the water..
As per aqadvisor "which is considered over estimating", the recommended wc for the tank when I had 9 discus in it was 30% once a week..with 19 discus in it the recommended wc is 30% twice a week..so i am doing way more than needed..
A friend of me got discus juveniles from the same pet store, and yesterday they started to show same symptoms..he started treating with Sera baktopur although he is not sure what is the cause..
One more thing..I noticed that as long as no feeding, the fish is doing better "not 100%", but after feeding the situation gets worse..so I will proceed with salt treatment with no feeding for the coming 2 days hoping things will be fixed until I get some advise on what is the issue..
FMC is the blue liquid "metylen blue"..and I will try to take a video and post here..
Thanks again

[bluelagoon]

I wonder if the guy who wrote AqAdvisor kept discus and how long or is he going by fish in general,which discus are not.Really,I'm not kidding 10,20 and 30% WC's are way to small for that many hungry "young" discus,even tho it may not be the issue now,in all likeliness will become an issue from the many times that food will be going in the water before a large WC.Also,a large WC over a two week period could be harder on discus than a 50%-100% every day or every other day WC due to the chemical difference in the old and new water.This is why you only do smaller 25-30% WC's to tanks that don't get changed as frequently as discus tanks.These tanks will often get old tank syndrome.This could be things like PH(ions) and many different salts content in the old water and can shock the fish with the new water.

[malhilo]

I will consider your notes in the future Bluelagoon..appreciate your concern
The issue is bacterial infection, I kept looking all over it and am sure it is bacterial infection, I started treating it and I can tell that there are some improvement.
Unfortunately yesterday I lost one Juvenile, I wish if I had the needed info on time to be able to treat it..


I noticed something new, other fish keep nipping the rot parts in the infected fish..! not sure if they are just attacking her, or trying to help her with removing the rot? or just they think it is something they can eat over the body of that fish!
I wonder if someone else noticed this ever..!

Thanks again..

[bluelagoon]

Discus will often chase and nip at the weakest/less dominate tank mates.Fin rot is treated with a broad spectrum antibiotic;they are a few different ones out there.The infection probably came in with the new fish.That's why pet shop discus are not recommended.Too many fish coming and going from the same tanks.

[malhilo]

All our fish stores get discus in one shipment from the same supplier, one day before they get the discus they leak the info that tomorrow a new shipment is coming..next day you will find all discus lovers are at the fish stores, within few hours most of the discus is gone..so, either you get yours as early as possible, and you know that they still stressesed and suffering along trip, health issues may come and infect all other fish you have, or you will not get anything..and they only get one shipment per month or sometimes we wait for 2 months until they get it..
I have been trying to buy from outside but shipping cost will be very high for a small qty..last one I checked he said that shipping cost will be at least 600 usd if the weight is less than 100kg..
Sorry for the long story, but in other words, if I want to consider this pet shop as not recommended..then I will stop buying discus 😐😓

[bluelagoon]

Your profile says you live in the USA.They are some great discus coast to coast.Where in the world would shipping costs be $600?

[malhilo]

loool
I have updated the country now, I must have missed that one..
I live in Jordan..